This invention relates to intelligent decision systems, including humanoid, social, and natural-languaging machines. More particularly, it relates to computer systems including autonomous decision systems which include means for determining relevancy, i.e., the threats to and opportunities of the autonomous decision system, present and predicted. Even more particularly, it relates to such intelligent and humanoid autonomous decision systems having a new and efficient ontology and constructed and arranged to interact comfortably with humans, including the use of social bonding and natural languages.
The microfiche filed in the parent application shows the source code for a preferred embodiment of the present invention in the form of an entertainment or “game” entitled “StoryPal™” and an operating test software platform for humanoid robotics.
In the past, it has been a difficult and sought-after goal to provide general-purpose autonomous decision systems (herein also called “ADS's”) which can efficiently determine threats and opportunities, i.e., relevancies. In addition, there have been further goals to make such autonomous decision systems seem more “humanoid” in the sense of abilities to perform some human-like functions like thinking, feeling, languaging, determining relevancy, etc. Further, in order to provide comfortable interaction between such ADS's and humans, especially in natural language transactions, requires at least that the way the ADS “makes sense” of what is going on itself “makes sense” to humans.
Several chief areas in which the systems used by the ADS must “make sense” to most humans are: (1) the system for categorization used by the ADS to break up the infinite variety of the world and construct a finite representation of it; (2) the system for making decisions used by the ADS, e.g., by testing alternative actions and comparing the resulting alternative consequences (i.e., using a “what-if” system); (3) the system for determining the “relevancy” or “meaning” to (i.e., threats to and opportunities of) the ADS of various circumstances or situations; and (4) other ADS systems for accommodating such functions as determining similarity, doing learning, implementing bonding and sociality, and handling memory/history. Perhaps the major advantage which such an ADS might have is the use (sending and receiving) of natural language in interactions with humans.
In the prior art, there have been many efforts over many decades to provide such an autonomous decision system, or to at least find a good starting place for such efforts. Many “fields” have attempted this, among them Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Science, Artificial Life, and Robotics. But the goal has been elusive and there have been few serious proposals for a good starting place, even from major approaches like logic programming, “neural nets”, expert systems, and “fuzzy logic”.
As another example, philosophers of Artificial Intelligence are still today searching to agree upon good definitions of such common mammalian/human autonomy traits as “awareness”. And the scientific literature is void even of good proposals for general humanoid or machine systems of internal representation, or for general-purpose object categorization, or useful mathematical or non-linguistic ontologies, as with primitives permitting “whether concrete is included in abstract” computation, or for bonding and sociality implementation.